


But it does get better

by ToshiChan



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dark Thoughts, Depression, Gen, Healing, I always write him as trans, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Louie is trans, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Seriously guys this is kinda dark, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Triggers, but it does get better, please don't read this if it upsets you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 06:02:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18462950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToshiChan/pseuds/ToshiChan
Summary: It got worse when they turned seventeen.





	But it does get better

**Author's Note:**

> Haha I am not okay

It got worse when they turned seventeen. It was the sudden increase in stress coming from everywhere, a confusing bombardment of things to deal with that he couldn’t possibly begin to deal with. The pressure increased at school. He had standards to live up to, standards he burnt himself out trying to meet. The work load just kept increasing but he kept getting worse and worse grades as he struggled to stay afloat. He felt like a failure compared to everyone else.

The self loathing hit stronger than ever. It twisted away inside him, gnawing at his bones like he was some juicy piece of meat and not a young boy, slowly turning to skin and bone as he lost his appetite. He wanted to eat, he really did. It was just that every time he ate, he hated himself for it and it was easier to stop eating just so one little bit of self-hate would go away for just a moment. It didn’t even matter in the end, because he still hated himself and it wouldn’t go away, it just wouldn’t.

He didn’t feel like he deserved the people around him. He felt lazy, stupid, pathetic, unworthy of the love and support they kept giving him. He didn’t know what to do, what to say. He told them he was fine, because it was easier than the truth. The truth made him uncomfortable, made him feel way worse than already. It was like admitting he wasn’t okay just made him feel even less okay and he just wanted to feel okay, because his chest hurt and it wouldn’t stop and it made him so scared. And if that emptiness would let up for just one moment, things might actually be okay.

But they weren’t.

He was slipping, losing his tentative grip on happiness. He was moody, angry, frustrated all the time by the smallest of things. He hated being on his own, he hated being around other people. He hated himself and he hated that he hated himself. He wanted to find a way to feel something, anything. The anger and fear and pain just built up inside him and he had nowhere to put it because he wasn’t meant to feel like this, he was meant to be better. He wasn’t better, but he was meant to be, and so he couldn’t tell anybody. They wouldn’t understand. _He_ didn’t understand.

So he took a knife and he let the anger and fear and pain out on himself because that was the easiest thing to do.

It hurt so much more than anything he’d ever done before.

And that was a really, really good thing.

Because it was a different kind of pain and it meant for just a moment, the dark thoughts were drowned out by something else. Just for a moment though, because then everything was drowned out and he stopped being.

He stopped.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They came to visit him in the hospital. They brought flowers and books and toys and balloons and they cluttered up his room until it got so bad that every time he closed his eyes, the invading colours were still there. He would have liked to have them taken away but apparently what he wanted and what he felt didn’t even matter anymore. Everyone filled in his silences for him, said they understood what he was feeling. But they were always wrong. Always, always, always. He just didn’t have the energy to correct them.

Concerned doctors all came to talk to him and they looked so sad, as if he’d personally upset them with what he’d done. Whatever. He couldn’t talk back to them. It was that whole uncomfortable feeling again. Whenever he opened his mouth, the wrong things came out, because it was easier to talk about surface level problems. The deeper, darker problems. The more concerning ones, the scary ones…he couldn’t talk about those. And so he let them think he’d been stressed about school. Because had had. It was just so much more than that.

It always was.

They talked about admitting him somewhere, giving him time with constant professional help, because apparently the home environment didn’t suit him at the moment. They talked about it so much that he eventually just agreed, just to get them to shut up. After all, it didn’t matter what he wanted. Because he just wanted to die and apparently no one was going to sit back and let Louie Duck die.

Of course not. He was Scrooge Mc Duck’s nephew. Would suck pretty badly if you were the doctor to blame for letting Scrooge Mc Duck’s nephew kill himself.

Hah.

That was kind of funny.

Not that anybody thought his bleak sense of humour was funny. They’d snap at him.

“Not funny, Louie.”

“Don’t say that, Louie.”

“You don’t mean that, Louie.”

But he did mean it. They just didn’t want him to. So they spoke for him and said how he felt and he let them think that because it was easier.

It just was.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Huey and Dewey didn’t go a day without visiting. Visiting hours were only meant to be on Tuesdays and Saturdays but obviously Uncle Scrooge had pulled some strings and now he saw them every day. They always had things to say, stuff to talk about. He didn’t have to do anything except sit back and let them tell him stuff. That was easy. They didn’t really want to know how he felt, because they never liked the answer. If they just spoke too much, then he never had to say anything and they could go home convinced he was getting better.

Spoiler alert. He was not.

But! But, but, but, but, but. That was what they wanted to think. And so he let them. Because (you know the drill by now) it was easier.

He was really big on things being easy.

It was because things had been hard that he’d gotten to this point.  Near constant supervision, worried people telling him how they thought he felt. His stomach churning away inside him as he got the attention he’d never wanted. The eyes on him, the constant coddling, it drove him mad.

Wasn’t he already mad? How long could this go on.

How long could they keep him here?

Long enough.

Huey and Dewey graduated but of course he’d chosen to try and die a few weeks before school finished so instead he would have to repeat his final year. That’s what they always said to him anyway. Jokes on them, he had no intention of ever going back to school. Never ever. Huey and Dewey had had their moment. He didn’t want to do it alone.

Huey was valedictorian. Apparently he spoke about Louie in his speech. He didn’t want to know what Huey had said.

Sure, he knew Huey. He knew it wouldn’t have been some glorified pity party. Huey would have been entirely tasteful. He just didn’t think he was worth being brought up. He was sure everyone at school had already gossiped about him enough. They were just another bunch of people who thought they knew what he was like and were more than happy to comment on it. He could practically hear what they’d said.

“Always knew he’d do it.”

“I hear people like him always do it eventually.”

“Didn’t his brothers try and help him?”

“Surprised he didn’t graduate. I’m sure precious Uncle Scrooge could’ve bought him a degree.”

Shit like that.

It didn’t really matter if they were saying it though, because it was what he was thinking anyway.

Constantly. All the time.

Being supervised twenty four seven stopped him from doing most things.

It didn’t stop him overthinking.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They let him out eventually. They had to. They couldn’t keep him there forever, not when he wasn’t really a danger to anyone.

Except himself.

But depression was so ordinary, so boring, so surely a family support system could handle it.

Huey and Dewey slept in shifts. They tried to keep it a secret from him but he knew. It wasn’t like he was sleeping either. There was too much to think about, too much self hatred to keep him awake. He heard all the vibrating alarms, letting the older triplets know when to wake up and swap. He heard them all. He just didn’t bother to comment on it.

Because, easy. Easy to just ignore the things he didn’t like.

Mrs Beakley locked away every sharp object that he could potentially cut himself on. Medications were kept hidden and only brought out when desperately needed. He wasn’t allowed to go on adventures because of all the possible ways he could get himself killed. The roof was off limits, the pool was off limits, everything was off limits.

He sat in the lounge room and watched TV and tried to get interested in things again.

That’s what they’d always been saying at the hospital. That depression meant you lost interest in your favourite things and one sign that you were healing was regaining those interests. But his interests had never been worth much before. All they did was get him called greedy and lazy and he already got enough hate from himself. He didn’t want it from anyone else.

He was too sensitive, too afraid of what other people thought of him. The slightest hint that somebody thought he wasn’t doing a good job was enough to send him spiralling. And yet, he was constantly told he wasn’t doing a good enough job at getting better. It was a cruel, endless cycle.

He endured it.

He suffered it.

He despised it.

He despised himself.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Being left alone was a big no, no. Think of all the things he could get up to if he was unsupervised. All the ways he could die. Which, urgh, honestly, was going a little overboard in his opinion.

He wasn’t really going to go that far again. He’d done it once and that was enough. It had been scary, painful, good for just a second and nothing more. Now, he was content to just hate himself and want everything to stop. He’d just been hoping someone else would do it for him. He wasn’t brave enough. He was a coward.

More things to hate about himself.

Normally Huey and Dewey stayed with him. Webby as well. She didn’t talk too much like he’d been afraid of at first. She just patiently brought him things to do, apparently trying to spark a new interest in something. They’d tried knitting, puzzles, scrapbooking, journaling (that had been a fun one, he’d written down all kinds of self-loathing thoughts before Webby had taken it away), beading, quilting and many more things. Webby had sure liked all things sewing and such. Then Huey had pointed out he probably shouldn’t be around sharp objects and that had been the end of that.

Urgh. He’d actually started to like cross stitching.

When his brothers and sister couldn’t be with him, it was one of his uncles. Scrooge let him count money and do math, simple stuff he used to like to do. Once upon a time, long ago. It didn’t really help him regain his love of gold, but it was a simple, mindless task that sometimes made all the bad thoughts go away for just a bit.

Donald was sort of like Webby. He came up with all kinds of things for them to do together. Mostly new TV shows and movies for him to try but once they’d done some painting. That had been…alright.

It made him feel stupid, sometimes. He was just useless baggage they were dragging around. Wouldn’t it be easier to just leave him somewhere. Then he could lie there until he stopped existing.

And yet still they came. Huey with his guidebook and new fact. Dewey with his fidget cubes and fun adventure stories. Webby with her arts and crafts. Scrooge with his money. Uncle Donald with a board game or the next season of a crime show they’d been watching.

He had nothing to give them back.

They accepted that.

He tried to hate it. It got a little harder each time.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He saw his therapist. She was sensible, stern, patient. All things he really didn’t deserve. She let him write down the things he wanted to say, because he felt too uncomfortable to say them. She let him get angry, scream and yell and rip up her red carpet. She let him do all those things.

She wouldn’t let him give up.

She poked and prodded and pushed and shoved and wiggled enough doubt into his mind that sometimes he felt the constant wave of hate and fear just sort of…ebb away. She was good at her job.

He wished he appreciated it more. He wished he was nicer.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They took him to the beach once. A mental healthy day, they said, like he hadn’t been living a constant mental health day life for the past few months. He propped himself up on a pillow and watched Dewey and Webby tear towards the sea in search of huge waves to conquer. Huey sat up with him and rattled off everything he knew about the ocean.

It felt a little easier to breathe.

Sea air. That was his excuse. Sea air.

Uncle Donald chased after Dewey and Webby with life jackets, frantically quacking at them to come back before they drowned. It made him smile, just a little. He was glad when Huey didn’t make a big fuss over it. It just would have embarrassed him and made him feel stupid.

“It’s not gold, but it’ll do.” Uncle Scrooge said as he waddled over to stick his feet in.

“How about we do that next week?” Huey suggested.

Uncle Scrooge didn’t say no, and neither did he.

Things were changing.

Slowly.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Mrs Beakley taught him how to cook. He had to be under constant supervision, since cooking required the use of sharp objects. But he was grateful for a chance to do something else. The steady, rhythmic actions were sort of soothing in a way. And he liked it when people liked his food. And he liked being around Mrs Beakley. She reminded him of his therapist.

Once or twice, he’d say something. Just something small, about something he was thinking or feeling.

“I really liked cross stitching. I want to do it again.”

“I don’t like how worried Huey and Dewey are. I’m their brother, not their responsibility.”

“Uncle Donald hates sleeping in the house but he does it for me. I’m such a burden.”

Mrs Beakley never told him he was stupid or dismissed his fears. She just nodded and said she understood and suggested that his zucchini soup could do with some parmesan cheese.

It was something.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It happened one day. He thought about school and he thought about how much easier it would be if he was just dead and everything would stop and then he thought that hang on, that wasn’t right.

It was such a small victory. He didn’t tell anyone. He kept it for himself later, to make himself feel like he was getting better, like he was actually doing something.

_That’s not right._

_That’s not right._

_That’s not right._

 

 

* * *

 

 

He missed learning. He missed maths. He didn’t miss school, because school was hard and stressed him out and he hated being around people who never understood, and who just stared and stared like he was a curiosity in a zoo.

He liked the books, though. And the satisfaction of finishing something.

“Can I be home-schooled?” He dared to ask Uncle Donald.

He was surprised when the answer was yes.

And so once a week, he sat down with Mrs Beakley (was there anything she couldn’t do) for a lesson in whatever he wanted. Maths. Ancient Greek. The theories behind space travel. Famous poetry.

Webby joined in sometimes. Said she liked learning new things. He wasn’t stupid enough to think she didn’t know these things already. But he never told her to leave. It was nice to do something normal with her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Huey and Dewey stopped sleeping in shifts.

He started sleeping again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sometimes, it felt like nobody listened to him. No matter what he said, it was like he didn’t get an opinion because he was depressed and therefore, couldn’t think for himself.

Well he could.

End of story.

He could make his own choice.

Saying as such did not earn him a positive response.

“Your choice was to die!” Huey yelled.

“Yeah, five months ago it was. What about now? Does that matter?!”

“No!”

He and Huey didn’t talk for three days.

He only felt good about it for ten minutes before it started to hurt.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“When can you come adventuring again?” Dewey wanted to know.

“When Uncle Scrooge is one hundred percent sure I’m not going to throw myself off any cliffs or get stabbed on purpose.”

Dewey looked thoughtful. “Are you going to that?”

“No!”

“But I thought you wanted someone else to make the choice for you. Getting killed in combat, that wouldn’t be on you.”

“How do you know that?! Did you read my journal?!”

“…no…”

It was true, angry as it made him to admit that. He’d always hoped someone might come along and just do the job for them. Then it wouldn’t be his fault. Then he wouldn’t have to muster up the courage (or the cowardice) to do it.

“So, no adventuring for a while then.” Dewey sounded sad.

“It wasn’t like I was any good at it anyway.”

“Hey!” Dewey exclaimed. “Don’t say that. It’s so much harder without you. You…you wouldn’t understand.”

Huh.

He hadn’t realised how much they’d missed him out there.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Do you want to go back to school?” Uncle Donald asked.

“Do I have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice. And I’ll always give you one.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“Well…” Uncle Donald smiled. “Can’t blame me for not letting you make _that_ choice.”

And he found he couldn’t.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Relapses were common.

There’d be a few days where he’d feel like his old self. Days where the horrible thoughts would just leave him alone and he could laugh and smile like he used to. He could pull pranks and drink a can of pep without having it hit his stomach and churn there, sugary and sickening. When he had these days, he got lulled into a false sense of security. He thought that this was all going to be over.

And then it would just hit him.

And it hurt and it was scary all over again. The emptiness ate away at his heart and it was such a horrible feeling, he couldn’t begin to describe it. He could only feel it and feel what it did to him. The good days where he actually liked himself became nothing in the sudden onslaught of horrible thoughts.

He took to slapping himself when he thought them. Nothing too hard, just a quick hand to the face. Sometimes a few times in a row if it was especially bad. Without any access to anything like knives, he had to make do.

_Worthless._

Slap.

_Your brothers hate you._

Slap.

_Webby hates you._

Slap.

_Go fucking die._

Slap.

_No seriously, why aren’t you dead?_

Slap.

_Just die, Louie. Die!_

Slap. Slap. Slap.

Then Huey caught him doing it and made him stop.

God, if only his brothers knew that there was nothing he wouldn’t do for them.

He’d get better for them, if he could.

He wanted to.

Sometimes.

And then the bad days came back, and he couldn’t think about anything except how bad he was and how bad life was and that was it.

Simple, really.

So goddamn fucking simple.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They made him join a support group. Once every week on Thursday afternoons for two hours. Just him a room with a trained therapist and twelve other fucked up people.

He didn’t talk much, in the support group. He didn’t want to take time away from the people who really needed it. He didn’t want that oh so familiar stomach churn that came with talking about how he was really feeling. And he didn’t want to sound like an attention seeking freak.

So he stayed quiet and listened to the others talk.

Sometimes it helped.

 

* * *

 

 

Mrs Beakley let him cross stitch. He had to be supervised and all materials handed back in when he was done, but she let him do it.

It was a step forward.

He was surprised by how good it made him feel.

 

 

* * *

 

 

One day, Ottoman Empire came off and he didn’t turn it off.

Small victories.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He wouldn’t say he had nightmares. All the kids in the support group said they did but he couldn’t really claim to understand that. Well, he didn’t have really scary ones or anything that had him waking up screaming. But sometimes, Huey and Dewey and Webby and everyone else he loved would die. And it made him so scared, so afraid and sad and he woke up with his heart hurting in a different way to when it felt empty.

It made him realise how the others would feel if he died.

It made him realise he didn’t want to die anymore.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Do you want to go back to school?” Uncle Donald asked again.

“No.” He said. “I never want to go back to school ever again.”

“Okay.” Uncle Donald said.

And it was.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He woke up one day excited about nothing. There was nothing he should have been looking forward to, and yet he felt as though something good was about to happen. It had been so long since he’d felt that way, it threw him off balance for a bit. Was he allowed to be happy over nothing? Was this something he could do now?

He didn’t walk around bursting into song or anything but he knew his family could tell he was in a good mood. It made them all outwardly happier and it made him realise just how much his depression had been weighing on them.

“How’s college?” He asked Huey and watched his older brother beam.

Huh. He hadn’t ever asked that before. It felt good to think about other people. It felt good to feel happy about their happiness.

The usual bitter jealously and negative thoughts about how he should be getting off his ass and doing something weren’t there. They were just…gone!

If Huey was surprised by the hug, he didn’t say it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The thing that sucked about getting better is it meant that people stopped thinking he could actually feel bad. Or at least, that’s how it felt to him. It probably wasn’t realistic or blah, blah, blah, whatever his therapist would say. He just couldn’t help but feel that the more progress he made, the more people expected he was never going to ever go back to the dark place.

But he could.

It wouldn’t be a choice, certainly not. But nobody seemed to realise how easy it was to just slip off the edge and fall back down into it all. It just happened sometimes. He couldn’t explain it. He couldn’t give them the explanation they were all asking for. So why didn’t they just shut up?! Why did they always want to know what was wrong?

He didn’t know!

He didn’t fucking know!

Things were just wrong and they sucked and he was sad, he was so, so sad, why couldn’t that be enough?

Why wasn’t it enough?

 

 

* * *

 

 

One day, everyone was out. Webby and Mrs Beakley were off doing ‘girl’s stuff’ while Huey was at college and Dewey and Uncle Donald had some jobs to do. Uncle Scrooge got called into the office and he took his youngest nephew with him.

He was surprised when Scrooge didn’t make him sit in on board meetings or anything. It was a relief. He didn’t want to be reminded of all the hard work he should have been doing right about now. Instead, Uncle Scrooge let him hang out with Gyro and Fenton and Manny in their lab.

The scientists sort of showed off for him, putting on fantastical displays with their latest inventions. Nobody asked him if he was okay once.

And if they had, the answer would have been yes.

It was nice.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Some nights he had to sleep with Huey. Other nights he slept with Dewey. Once or twice he’d bunked in with Webby.

He didn’t think they minded. He supposed if he had a suicidal brother, he’d be glad to fall asleep reassured that they were okay.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“What do you want to do today?” Uncle Scrooge asked him at breakfast. “What adventure are we going to have?”

“You’re letting me an adventure.”

“A small one. A wee one. Just to get you back out there again. Nothing dangerous. Just a trip to a place you want to see.”

“Well…” He said tentatively. “Do you guys like Shakespeare?”

The huge smiles he got seemed like all the agreement he needed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

For a while, he hadn’t been allowed out with Launchpad. Nobody had said it, but he supposed the worry was he’d encourage Launchpad to crash in a desperate attempt to die. What they’d all forgotten however, was that equation meant Launchpad would be with him. And he would never ever risk the life of someone else just for his old death wishes.

Not being allowed in cars or planes or boats with Launchpad did not stop the older duck dropping in on him as often as he could. He got the feeling Launchpad didn’t quite understand what was going on. But Launchpad was there and he was trying and it felt good in a different sort of way.

There was no pressure.

There was just…living.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The good days came and they lasted longer.

The bad days came and they went by quicker.

The average days became the norm, but at least they weren’t the bad days.

Huey and Dewey stopped sending him texts every ten minutes demanding updates.

He was allowed to cross stich on his own when he wanted to.

Mrs Beakley left him alone for an hour and nobody freaked out about it.

He went into town to get ice-cream with Webby and not once did he worry about anybody staring at him.

Uncle Donald took him on a boat ride and let him stand up near the wheel.

Scrooge offered him a part time job in the accounting department at The Bin and he took it.

He started to speak more in group therapy.

He started to speak more in general.

He had a bad day and he told Huey and Dewey about it instead of keeping it to himself.

He felt the urge to harm himself and he ran to Webby for help.

Adventures started up again and he threw himself in with a rigour he didn’t know he possessed.

He never went back to school.

He kept sneaking in with Huey and Dewey in the night.

He never stopped seeing his therapist.

He never pretended he was one hundred percent fine, never let his guard down.

And that was okay.

Louie Duck kept on living.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, I just really needed to get this out.


End file.
